Life is Strange ep 3 on May 19

If you're like me and really enjoyed the first two episodes of Life is Strange, you'll be happy to learn that the third one is going to be released next week, on May 19 to be precise. One image is available, and it of course slightly spoils what's going to happen next.

Posted by RaggsvettmaThis game so far is so bad. But it's so bad it's good. The awful faceanimations and the horrendous written dialogue.

I know it's a troll comment, but I will answer it. As unlikely as it is, maybe it will help you in your life in some way or form, I don't know... like maybe it will help you try living your life by the things you love and like, instead of the things you hate and dislike.

Or you can continue to be a troll whose real life is so miserable that you feel the "need" to share a little bit of your misery to others to try and get something out of it.

We have definitely played 2 different games. Or what's more likely, maybe you just didn't play Life is Strange at all, or played it like a lot of people play dumb shooter games - without using their brains.

I haven't found the facial animations horrible, at all. Quite on the contrary, they all express all types of human emotions quite well, from subtle to downright clear levels. I just remembered Victoria's face expressions in the stairs that goes to the girls' dorm - among many others - and if you thought those were "awful", you definitely need glasses or eye surgery.

As for the written dialogue, it's one of the best written dialogue in recent games, on par and sometimes even better than The Walking Dead games. It makes all the characters feel "real", just like real people that I met in school or at work in real life. I could say more, but if you actually "played" the game, I don't even need to say more.

And the voice acting is superb, which helps drive home even more how great the dialogue is. Perhaps you don't remember how some young people speak, or even how you and your friends spoke or felt at that age - if you're even past it... But DontNot made very authentic to real life characters and settings, taking all the rewind time elements aside.

Below is the link to the Steam page of Life is Strange, where the game has 11,300 reviews - of which 97% are positive, awarding it an "Overwhelmingly Positive" tag.

Some of the things the game is most praised about in both professional and user reviews are the gorgeous visuals and dialogue, which mainly goes against everything you said.

I honestly cannot understand your problem, but to each its own. What I would personally like to see less in any site is people who hate something comment in that something's space (news, articles, forums threads, etc.) how they hate that something with a simple "it's shit" or similar comment.

And worse of all, just saying things are shit, without actually "criticizing" them in why or how they believe they are shit. Like if just saying "they are shit" is more than enough.

For example, I hate Halo's gameplay systems, and now that I think about it, almost everything about the franchise as well. However, the only time I posted into a Halo article was to compliment the excellent work Blur Studios made with the new CGI cutscenes in Halo: The Master Chief Collection (link below), which are mind-blowing. To post other examples of their great work and that I can't wait for the day when real-time graphics reach that quality.

If you really believe the game is bad and want to post that in the game's news article, explain in detail why you believe that. It has awful face animations, give examples and explain what is wrong with them and what would have made them right. The script is horrendous, what are the parts of it that are like that? Maybe you should send DontNod an user feedback detailing what you would like to see improved or removed from subsequent chapters.

And if your answer is a simple: "I don't care enough about the game to do those things.", then why the f*ck are you posting BS comments like "This game so far is so bad. But it's so bad it's good. The awful faceanimations and the horrendous written dialogue." in here?!

Are you so miserable or utterly pathetic that you want to fill your life with the things that you hate and dislike, instead of with the things you love and like - the things that actually make you happy?

i'm pretty sure even the develper said the facial animations are ass. so he's not wrong. and the dialogue is pretty cringy. but it's an episodic adventure game. telltale game suffer the same jank problems. i'm willing to look past them becasuse A. it's a dying genre. and B. they're budget games, both in production and more importantly, cost to the consumer.

Game is great! It's a bit annoying that the swearing feels forced, but I get the impression the rest of the world thinks Americans do nothing but swear, so I kind of understand why it's written that way. Other than that, it's an amazing game.

I'm SO GLAD games like this can exist alongside; CODs, Minecrafts, Skyrims, GTAs, Forzas, Striders, Shovel Knights, Oris, etc...etc...etc... It's a great time to be a gamer, honestly.

I believe you meant "lip-syncing", not facial animation. EuroGamer conducted an interview with Life is Strange's co-director, Michel Koch, during EGX Rezzed 2015 (link below), which addresses the game's criticism in regards to lip-syncing.

Except for matching the words that are being heard, lip-syncing has little to do with facial animation, which is mostly about how well it expresses human emotions in a believable way. Which is what I responded to.

If you have a link to where a developer from DontNod says the "facial animations are ass" or something like that, please post it, because I couldn't find any by searching on Google.

As for the dialogue being "pretty cringy", can you give examples of what parts of it are pretty cringy? Because I honestly can't remember of a single line of dialogue that made me cringy. Not saying there isn't, just that I honestly can't remember ever cringing about it.

Also, please don't forget that the story revolves mostly around teenagers and young adults, so a lot of the dialogue reflects that, which is by "design" and not an "accident" made out of incompetence.

It would be very unrealistic if they suddenly all acted wise and mature. Teenagers say and do a lot of things that are unbelievably stupid - hell, even a lot of adults and senior people do them, it's part of life.

As a personal note, I used to hate a lot of child acting, even some teenage acting, in most movies and TV shows, like extremely hate it because of all the dumb shit they pulled. Like for example, a child does something incredily stupid which makes absolutely no sense, and which leads to someone's death.

Stuff like that used to make me really mad and I remember always thinking that the writters did those characters and that part of the story really badly.

It wasn't till I started interacting with more children in real life, which forced me to understand them, that I ended up realizing that that's how almost any child, and some teenagers, act. Now I mostly enjoy child and teenage acting, even the dumb ones.

Hence why I said maybe he forgot how teenagers act, or how he and his friends acted in their youth - if he's past or at that age range.

I'd say lip-syncing and facial animations are pretty much the same thing since the rig needs to be more then a flapping jaw to sync up well to any dialogue anyway. And both are bad in this game, as they are in telltale games. They have blank vacant lifeless facial animation. "Emotions" are exagerated and abrupt.... But they're hardly made on the budget or skill sets of naughty dog so its bound to be the case. Its a sin, but a forgivable one.

As for the dialogue. I guess some are ok. But others feel forced. Not a natural way in which a kid would speak, but its more an adult rendition of how a kid would speak. It just doesnt convince imo. But again. I can overlook it because no-one but telltale seem to make these sorts of games anymore.

A lot like their last game i guess. A bit lf a janky ass game. Lol. But at least this one is cheaper :P

No you don't. The dialogue is really badly written with slang that no one use.
The dialogue has no grasp on what real teenagers actually speak like. Wowsers, awesomesauce this is some of the worst written slang that's being used with sarcasm, and the game is using it seriously. And let's not start with all the forced "im a nerd who reference x-files and Twin Peaks."

It's forced bullcrap, but that's what makes the game so good, cause it's pretty bad.

Let me reiterate; a lot of developers who aren't from America seem to think that Americans use "FUCK" as a pause between words (see Bulletstorm, Binary Domain, Life is Strange). Not all Americans talk like that and Pacific-Northwestern teenagers don't really talk like the kids in Life is Strange (or even Twilight, for that matter).

That said, the game is still great and I applaud DontnoD for their efforts and eagerly await the next installment.

Sorry for my late reply, yesterday was the busiest day of the year for me at work.

They're not, lip-syncing is a "part" of facial animations, not the same. Please remember all those voiceless games and silent movies, do they not not have facial animations (games) or facial expressions (movies) just because there's no lip-syncing (game) or sound (silent movies)?

Of course they have, and that's what I meant when I said: "Except for matching the words that are being heard, lip-syncing has little to do with facial animation, which is mostly about how well it expresses human emotions in a believable way."

Below is the link to Google images search for "facial animations", while they're just images, they show all kinds of faces simulating human emotions. And unless stated otherwise, no lip-syncing involved.

I believe The Walking Dead has better facial animations than Life is Strange, though the visual style sometimes doesn't help show that. As for the dialogue being bad in both Life is Strange and The Walking Dead, most people who played these games disagree with you.

Take episode 3 of the 1st season of The Walking Dead, it has a moment that is the single most touching and life-like moment I have ever experienced in a video game, the written is absolutely "perfect"!

It conveys everything that the same types of moment in real life convey, saying it was brilliant or excellent writing, voice acting and facial expressions doesn't do it justice, and I can't say more about it without going into spoilers, because no one deserves that moment to be ruined for them.

Perhaps if you never experienced such a moment in real life or at least through movies, TV series or books, you won't be able to appreaciate it to the fullest, or even understand what it happened in its entirety. But that's on you, not the game.

As a personal example, in the manga REAL by Takehiko Inoue, there's a point where an athlete suffers a motorcicle accident and ends up in a wheelchair, and you see him passing through all of the pain and suffering that something like that causes.

The first time I read it, I thought I understanded it and felt bad for the character, but that was it. On my second read, many years later, I reached the same point in the story, but then it just hit me, it was as if I was put into that character's shoes and I started to feel all of the pain, suffering and sadness that he was feeling. It was one of the finest experiences I ever had in my entire life. Even remembering it now feels so surreal.

The manga didn't change, it was the same version, everything was the same - except for me. I had changed and as a reader, that meant that I was more able to understand that type of experience. Even if I never experienced it myself - and I hope I never do.

The works of Takehiko Inoue are very centered in Philosophy, Poetry, existentialism and etc, and he is considered by many to be the best mangaka alive, including me, though I say he is the best mangaka of all time as well. The reason I mention this is because whether a reader can fully appreciate his works or not, doesn't mean their true value isn't there.

The same is true for a lot of things in life, but specially true in Art works. I don't know you, but maybe you don't like Drama, or if you do, perhaps not as much as me. But when you say that The Walking Dead has bad dialogue and facial animations, that moment in episode 3 is the moment I immediately remember - though I also remember plenty of other moments that contradict what you're saying.

I never played the demo and decided to wait for the whole season before playing it, but I kept remembering episode 1's excellent first trailer for a really long time, then I rewatched it one day and at that moment, I thought "screw it, I'm gonna go for it".

So I got only the first episode, and after playing it, immediately got the second. I remember having a good reason why I didn't get the season pass then, but I can't remember what it was. Maybe I will get it after episode 3 comes out.

As you can see if you go beyond the 1st page or have more than 10 results per page enabled, a lot of people use "Wowsers" in blogs and news articles - not just sarcastically, but seriously as well.

In the Merriam-Webster site page for the word "wowser" (link below), you can see it's meaning - though not the one used in the game, I believe - and in the user comments section, the user "Beulah Chang" wrote: "A friend used the word Wowzer as an adjective meaning Fantastic.", in January 14, 2013 at 7:39am.

Also, I should mention that I once got a client, he was a bank employee (if that matters), that used the most odd expression from an old Mexican TV series from the 70s', Chaves - in English, it's called "El Chavo del Ocho (often shortened to El Chavo)".

When I told this to my job co-workers, some of them replied that they also talked with other clients that also used the same expression, as well as other clients who used very antiquated expressions from the 1900s and so on.

As odd/weird/strange as some expressions are, some people still use them. That's real life, so if I were to make a character in a video game, movie or book that used that same expression, I bet a lot of people would say that's a "badly written dialogue with a slang that no one use". But only because they don't know better, now you do.

I could give more examples on how that's specially true for slangs, but I believe you can understand that just because most people, or the people you know, don't use certain slangs and expressions today, doesn't mean no one else does. The world is a vast place and there's over 7 billion of us in it.

Any good writer needs to create different characters in order to make any story more believable and diverse, after all, we're not all alike in real life, are we? So why should fictional characters all speak or act in the same way in fictional works?

Funny you should mention that, I just remembered a talk I had with the director of the biggest Business Intelligence (BI) company in my country - during a lecture about BI that I helped with, in which we discussed how he prepared for the countless lectures he does.

He said to me that the less time he has, the more time he needs to prepare what he is going to speak about and show, like how for a 15 minutes lecture, he would spend 2 weeks working on it, but a 1 hour lecture would take him only a few days.

I mentioned this because sometimes I feel the same, it's much easier to write in detail - with examples and links - once like in a forum than to keep writing as little as possible like on Twitter.

With the latter tending to cause a lot of confusion and even more posts to clarify the user's intentions. Look to the hundreds of comments in threads like the Uncharted ones here on Gamersyde, to see what I mean.

Plus, I read and type a lot for work, and on my spare time, so reading or writing the infamous "wall text" comes naturally to me. But I will keep your input in mind.

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